


flower funerals and poor assumptions

by azira-yeet (Judeyjude)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Humor, Gabriel the Accidental Matchmaker by Use of Astounding Assholery, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Misunderstandings, Neighbors, Other, background autistic!Aziraphale, background disabled!Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judeyjude/pseuds/azira-yeet
Summary: Every time Aziraphale sweet-talks to his flowers his neighbor starts yelling ridiculous insults at his own plants (if he even has them). Aziraphale isn't sure what game his neighbor is playing at but if he thinks can embarrass Aziraphale into stopping his way of gardening then he has another thing coming.❀❀❀Or, "The Gardener is Meaner on the other side (or so it seems)"





	flower funerals and poor assumptions

**Author's Note:**

> [another tumblr post gone wild!](https://azira-yeet.tumblr.com/post/185966761581/enemies-to-lovers-neighbors-au) I really thought this would be 1,000 words at most if I expanded it but here we are. Enjoy!

When Aziraphale was a young boy, he imagined hundreds of little futures for himself where he lived far, far away from his family. As he grew older, he circled around to what he dreamt most of as a child. The image in his mind was worn around the edges like a favorite page in a favorite book. A nice, simple life with a small little house filled with a world of books and a beautiful flower garden.

All the happiest people had beautiful gardens, Aziraphale had firmly believed. Colorful flower beds reflected a colorful, happy life.

So, Aziraphale flipped and flopped around in life, saved up money, and now at the comfortable age of his late thirties he had a lovely little home filled with too many and not enough books. Simple and nice. He’d tell anyone that he is the happiest he could ever be but that would be a lie because, try as he might, Aziraphale did _not_ have a garden of any kind.

“I truly don’t understand the grudge you have against me,” Aziraphale said. He used a piece of string to tie the stem of a purple flower to a stick he found on the ground. He’d seen public parks use a similar technique with freshly planted trees to keep them growing up straight. “First your sister, then your brother, then your sibling, and now _you_. But I won’t fail you, I promise, darling.”

Aziraphale finished tying the knot. The purple flower slumped over, taking the stick down with it, but it hung a little bit above ground than if it hadn’t had the stick, so he claimed it as a win. His knees protested as he pushed himself up. His cousin Gabriel ragged on him to eat healthier and work out more but there are some things Aziraphale couldn’t be bothered with, such as the book on gardening that sat on the table next to his armchair. 

He’d get to reading it one day and then nothing would stop him from his perfect life blooming with flowers. For now, though, a collection of Sylvia Plath’s poetry called to him. 

❀❀❀

_The Start_ , as Aziraphale referred to it in his head, happened exactly one week later.

“Now, you can’t say I broke my promise. Arguably, _you_ are the one who failed _me._ ” What used to be a purple flower laid shriveled up among Aziraphale’s other half-doomed flowers. “I don’t begrudge you for it, even though it is rather rude to die. I suppose I can use you as compost. That is a thing, right? Or is that disrespectful to the other flowers to be using a dead flower to fertilize them. Hm. You are right, it _does_ sound like bad luck,” Aziraphale nodded to his (mostly) healthy looking daisies, “I do agree with you, my loves.”

Before he could figure out what one was supposed to do with a dead flower, which you’d think he’d know by now considering how many flower funerals he’d caused, a startling yelp sounded from the other side of his fence.

Aziraphale fell backwards from his kneeling position and onto his bum. Pain shot up his wrists from bracing his hands behind him to help the fall. The yelling on the other side of the fence grew louder with words following the screaming.

“I was rooting for you! I believed in you. Drooping petals? DO YOU WANT ME TO BE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD?” The voice, Aziraphale recognized, belonged to his next-door-neighbor, the one with the odd name. He’d never spoken with the neighbor, though Aziraphale did see him use his walking cane to wack the legs of a kid bullying a stray cat. “This is why I don’t grow flowers. You weak, pathetic promises of beauty don’t deserve to be near my luxurious plants. You’ve disappointed me. I’m going to have to pull up your whole bed because you’re,” and here his neighbor shouted again, “ALL BAD LUCK!”

_Bad luck_ , Aziraphale thought dazedly. Did his neighbor have problems with his flowers as well? He’d never heard his neighbor talk to his flowers before. He certainly didn’t know anyone—then again, he didn’t make an effort to know many people—who talked to their flowers. Funny, how his neighbor right on the other side of the fence had the same problem as Aziraphale! Both of them talking about bad luck on the same day. The corners of Aziraphale’s lips turned upwards until everything his neighbor shouted ran through his head.

_You weak, pathetic promises of beauty_. A brush of wind rocked Aziraphale’s daisies as if the white flowers nodded in agreement to how that was decidedly not a nice thing to say to plants. Aziraphale wanted a beautiful garden more than anyone but he didn’t think a few (several) failed flowers made someone a ‘laughing stock’.

_“You’re going to be the fool of the neighborhood dressed in a vest and a coat. Can you at least get rid of the bow-ties?” Gabriel told Aziraphale on the first week in his home._

If Gabriel had been Aziraphale’s neighbor, he’d have laughed at Aziraphale sweet-talking nature. He’d probably mock him by pretending to talk to his own garden (not that he’d have one because Gabriel is the worst and therefore not worthy of a garden).

Another breeze shook Aziraphale’s daisies as if they were trying to tell him something important.

“Bad luck, all of you,” the neighbor’s voice carried through the fence.

_Oh._

Nobody talked to flowers—nobody _yelled_ at flowers. Oh, what a fool Aziraphale was! Did his neighbor really think Aziraphale was the laughing stock of the neighborhood? So much so that not only did he have a laugh at the expense of Aziraphale but he also made it a point to call flowers weak and pathetic, something people accused Aziraphale of being. Not that he ever minded, he’d rather be seen as such than be dull and miserable while gazing at all the pleasures of life and never indulging in them for fear of mockery.

Scowling, Aziraphale stood up and walked into his home, determined to not be riled up or give in to responding to the massive prat of a neighbor. Nobody would ever make Aziraphale ashamed and _no one_ , absolutely no one, was going to stop him from his dream garden.

Thus marked the day as _The Start_ , and every day after it as war.

❀❀❀

“Daisies, might I say you are looking especially dashing today?” They did not but Aziraphale believed in positivity. “Now do not worry, I paid attention to the watering can today and I didn’t fill it to the brim so there will be no more accidents!” He cast a glance at the wilted reddish-orange flowers beside the daisies and grimaced. 

_“Does anyone have news they want to share with the class today?”_ Neighbor Prat's voice rang out. “Hm? Nobody? You have ten seconds before I have my rounds and one of you is not looking too great from this angle.”

Puffing out an annoyed breath of air, Aziraphale set his watering can down. Did Neighbor Prat wait around all day for Aziraphale to start speaking with his flowers? He glared at the fence separating them. It brought his gaze to a dandelion poking out at the back of his garden.

Neighbor Prat thought Aziraphale’s soft, kind words were embarrassing? Just watch _this_. “Oh,” Aziraphale spoke loudly, “I think you are a weed but you are gorgeous.” Aziraphale smiled at the dandelion because he did truthfully find it pretty. He added extra perkiness into his voice. “Hello dear, welcome to my humble abode! Don’t worry about the daisies next to you, I’m going to give them some water and they’ll pop right back up, I promise! Now daisies, sweet darlings, I know I said you look dashing, and it was only a little white lie. With a little drink, you’ll be beaming with your new roommate, the lovely dandelion. You are all so wonderful and kind and I am extremely proud of you.”

No yelling or sounds of any kind came through the fence and Aziraphale smiled smugly.

❀❀❀

Aziraphale’s daisies died. They were the most vibrant and long-living and he might have been teary-eyed as he gave them their final compliments.

Neighbor Prat, throughout this little funeral, boasted about how other-worldly his plants looked and how they better stay that way.

❀❀❀

Aziraphale had a very important rule to Never Speak With The Enemy. He didn’t know he had this rule until one day he stepped outside, face turned up to bask in the shining sun, and his neighbor called out to him.

Perhaps to live in the house Aziraphale owned meant you were predestined to meet your nemesis in your neighbor because the last homeowner built a fence tall enough that you had to stand up on your tiptoes to be able to look over. The other fence sides were only three feet tall. 

His neighbor leaned over the fence, arms crossed on top of the wooden planks. He must have found a stool. “Hello,” his neighbor said. He pointed at Aziraphale’s garden, which Aziraphale thought had been doing quite well lately, and said, “Your flowers don’t look so great. I could give you advice if you’d like. I’m Crowley, in case you didn’t know. I’m an expert with plants.”

Aziraphale’s ears rang with a high-pitched internal noise of astonishment. The gall of this—this—this _awful_ , _rude, cocky, bullying human!_ Throwing his neighbor a scorching look, Aziraphale twirled on his heel and stepped back inside, firmly closing the door. 

“Never speak with the enemy,” Aziraphale said to his books. They didn’t respond to him, of course, but he felt that they agreed mightily.

❀❀❀

Aziraphale didn’t go outside for a few days after that. He sadly stirred his cocoa and gazed out the window, realizing his garden looked the same neglected as it did after he spent all his effort nurturing it. The thought of giving up flitted through his mind and buying cacti that (surely) wouldn’t die on him.

Then he heard distant shouting and his mind renewed with vigor to get the dream garden he desired more than anything else. 

❀❀❀

“Good afternoon, sweet sweeties. You are all looking especially lovely today, darlings. My dears, I am extraordinarily proud of all the growth you are doing. How wonderful of you sweethearts to try your best!” Aziraphale was running out of terms of endearment. “Gorgeous babes.”

❀❀❀

“OH MY—WHAT IS THE POINT? YOU LOT WILL NEVER LEARN WILL YOU?”

❀❀❀

“Oh, how vibrant your colors are! And you smell so delightful! And look at all these little sprouts, I will love you all unconditionally. You are all strong and inspiring. What a refreshing sight to give hope that the world is not vainly cruel!”

❀❀❀

“ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY? IS THIS A JOKE TO YOU? YOU WANT TO DISGRACE ME WITH LEAVES LIKE THAT? DO YOU WANT TO DEAL WITH TOLERABLE ANTHONY OR UNFORGIVABLE CROWLEY?”

❀❀❀

Four months had gone by at this point and Aziraphale was starting to think some rather foul words in regards to _Crowley_. Naturally, on the day Aziraphale thought at _least he cannot be more of a bastard than he is now,_ the forces of the world forced Aziraphale to break his sacred rule.

Since Aziraphale bought his perfect little home, a lovely little snake visited him every now and then. After his first fright seeing the creature slither by, he researched and discovered it to be harmless. He was most fond of it.

“How lovely to see you again,” Aziraphale said, speaking at a normal volume with no forced cloying tone. “I could do with some quality company.”

Much to Aziraphale’s horror, the snake cared not for Aziraphale’s company today, slithering away through a gap between fence planks right into Crowley’s backyard.

This was how it happened: Aziraphale’s heart jumped into his throat, then Aziraphale jumped onto a bucket he didn’t remember grabbing or upending in order to balance on, and suddenly he was Speaking With The Enemy. Or shouting, to be precise.

“You leave him alone! He is kind and innocent and has done nothing wrong. He’s a lovely little creature and if you so much as look at him—I have a garden hoe!” Here, Aziraphale waved the garden hoe he did indeed have in his hand. “I mean it! I have a hoe and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Facing Aziraphale, Crowley lowered the dark sunglasses he perpetually wore and stared with a strange type of wonder. Probably didn’t expect Aziraphale to confront him head-on. Crowley squinted at Aziraphale, his eyes clearly hurting from the sunlight but he insisted on the drama of making direct eye-contact.

“Hurt what? The snake?” Crowley asked. He sounded genuinely confused and not as if Aziraphale demanded a silly request he would ignore. “Why on earth would I hurt the snake?”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley. Crowley squinted back at him. Aziraphale looked to the snake to back to Crowley to Crowley’s gorgeous flower beds—vibrant and full of life—to down at _his_ ‘garden’ and back to Crowley. “Because—” How could Aziraphale sum this up? “—because you’re _mean!_ ” There. Aziraphale jerked his head with a nod. Childish but true.

Crowley’s eyebrows rose so fast that they caused his sunglasses to fall back down and cover his eyes. “Mean?” Crowley echoed. He repeated it, his voice twisting in a condescending, disbelieving tone, “ _Mean?_ ”

Aziraphale curled his hand tightly around the hoe and his other hand tightened into a fist by his side. His hair may look wild in what he knew were disarrayed curls and his cheeks might be smudged with dirt and his head barely peeked over the fence but _dammit_ , he was intimidating! He pushed himself up onto the balls of his feet, wobbling on the bucket. All his pent up frustration poured out. “You make fun of me talking to my flowers and think that they are pathetic and weak and you don’t even mock me in a nice way! You yell rude words and,” Aziraphale’s face burned with raging heat, “you bragged about your plants when my daisies died!”

“Whu—you—dais—what,” Crowley spluttered, acting every inch a person confronted with their crimes. He gathered his wits long enough to string a lie together, “I don’t think flowers are pathetic and weak.” He waved his arms at his garden plentiful with a variety of flowers.

“You do,” Aziraphale insisted, “you said so.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale raised his chin. He had no patience for this pretending. At least Gabriel had the decency to know he was a bastard. “I don’t care if I don’t have a green thumb. I can garden if I want to and I’ll talk to whatever I please exactly as I please. You can yell at your plants and have a giggle with yourself but don’t you dare hurt the snake.”

When Crowley stood there impassively, Aziraphale climbed off the bucket—thanking the stars that he tumbled off it once he was safely out of sight.

“I don’t make fun of you,” Crowley said through the fence. 

The quietness of the statement broke Aziraphale. “You are a poisonous bunch-backed toad!” 

Crowley made a squawking protest sound, but Aziraphale was already across the yard and slamming his back door shut.

❀❀❀

“There you go, my dear.”

“Really, Aziraphale? You should have just smashed the bugger. Not let it free and talk to it.”

Watching the little spider scurry into the grass, Aziraphale ignored Gabriel.

“Wow,” Gabriel said slowly and with a laugh. “Is that your garden?” Gabriel whistled. “What did those poor flowers ever do to you?”

“Leave them alone,” Aziraphale said tiredly. He was tired and not up for visitors of any kind and Gabriel had the most annoyingly booming voice.

“ _Them_? Do you talk to your flowers, too? Give them little names. Call them your dears. Oh, come on Zira, I’m only joking. Do you need help standing up? I told you that you should watch your weight.”

Before Aziraphale got on Disability Living Allowance for his mental illnesses and had to depend on his family for income, he would have politely side-stepped Gabriel’s comments. Now, though, he stiffly remarked, “I’d rather sit and watch the spider than have to stare at your face for another moment. Hearing your voice is irritating enough as it is.”

Aziraphale thought he heard something that suspiciously sounded like a bark of laughter in the distance. It certainly wasn’t from his cousin who, after a silence, said with fake jolly, “Zira’s feeling feisty today. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Pushing himself up, Aziraphale meant to say _shut up_ in his mind. From the look on Gabriel’s face, he’d voiced his annoyance out loud.

“I’m the only one in the family that will talk to you. I come out here—”

“I don’t ask you to.”

“You should feel lucky, then,” Gabriel snapped. “I put all this time into checking up on poor Aziraphale. Family reject. Useless and soft with nothing but books and dead flowers as friends.”

“At least his flowers aren’t nearly as dead as you are inside.”

The rising tension between cousins fell as the two turned toward the source of the insult. Crowley didn’t hang over the fence but he must be pressed right up against it because his jabbing comment rang out loud and clear.

“Excuse me?” Gabriel said. 

“I said you’re a poisonous bunch-backed toad!”

Aziraphale blamed his bright laugh on shock.

_“Excuse me?”_

Crowley continued, “Aziraphale, does this asshole not hear well? I can Sign it for him if you give me a moment to come over.” He talked as if he said Aziraphale’s name a thousand times before and coming over happened regularly.

Crowley couldn’t see Gabriel’s sneer but Aziraphale could and he knew something nasty was about to be said before a hasty retreat was made to preserve pride. “If you learned Sign Language for him then you wasted your time,” Aziraphale’s cousin said loud enough for the neighborhood to hear, “because he’s the fucking worst to be around when he’s nonverbal.” Cue the hasty retreat.

Silence stretched until there was the sound of Gabriel’s car door slamming shut and the screeching sound of him driving away at a high speed.

“...I don’t give good hugs but I have a good bottle of scotch.”

"...do you have wine?”

❀❀❀

Turned out Crowley—or Anthony if Aziraphale wanted to call him that—wasn’t a bully at all! He was quite alright, even admittedly nice at his core! And that wasn’t just the wine talking! Okay, it was a little bit of the wine talking. Not that wine talked, Aziraphale wasn’t _that_ drunk. Delightfully tipsy, however.

“You thought I was making fun of you?” Crowley asked again for the fourth or fifth time. His head slumped to the side, cushioned on the back of his sofa, and he looked a bit like an animal staring intently with his head cocked like so. His pale brown eyes looked unearthly in the dim lights—sunglasses discarded two hours or so ago. The wonder on his face wasn’t because he was guilty of crimes that Aziraphale confronted him with. Aziraphale had been oh so wrong. Close up, and without bias, the wonder seemed to say Crowley didn’t quite know what to make of Aziraphale but wanted to keep him until he figured it out.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, _again._ He laughed. “You said ‘bad luck’ right after I did as if you’d been listening in.”

“I wouldn’t make fun of you. Your way of caring for flowers is…odd…but endearing.”

“ _I’m_ odd!” Aziraphale straightened in Crowley’s armchair. “You’re the one who screams at your plants!”

“And they are the best plants on the planet because of it. I’m a bo—ba—bow-tin-st. Anyway, you’re not allowed to argue with me.” Crowley jerked his thumb toward himself. “Plant expert.”

“Congratulations.”

“It’s been hours and I called someone a bunch-backed toad—can we appreciate I said that correctly drunk?” Crowley paused and Aziraphale gave one consolatory clap. “All that and we’re not enemies anymore, though you were never _my_ enemy, and I _still_ don’t get a name. Even the weeds—” Crowley shuddered “—get called sweethearts or, or, or _something_.”

Smiling, and knowing it was his sappy and dorky grin, Aziraphale shook his head.

“What is this? Am I never to be forgiven for my falsely assumed crimes?”

“I will forgive you,” Aziraphale promises, “if... _if_ …”

“Yes, yes,” Crowley urged impatiently. He leaned forward, gazing into Aziraphale with great pale eyes.

“If I get to talk to your plants.”

“Talk to my…” Crowley’s eyes widened. “No, no. Absolutely not.”

“They are so _beautiful_ , though.”

Crowley stuttered. “Yeah—well—what do you—yes, of course they are! They’re _mine_.”

Aziraphale’s face crumbled. “I know.” Morosely, he added, “You have a green thumb.”

Crowley let out probably the world’s longest groan. “Alright, alright. Fine. You can talk to them. One! That one. In the corner.”

“The leafy one?”

“Yes,” Crowley dragged the word out, pretending to sound exasperated when really he sounded far too fond. “The ‘leafy one’, angel.”

“I thought you wanted _me_ to call you something endearing.”

“Shut up, angel, and go torture my plant.”

Aziraphale stumbled more from excitement than the wine. He was more sober than Crowley, who couldn’t say the word ‘botanist’. The plant Crowley assigned to him was twice Aziraphale’s height and in a big pot. Crowley’s home was filled with large plants like this—he’d only just started gardening outside when Aziraphale first heard him scream. 

Running a finger over one of the leaves, Aziraphale said, “So smooth. Your leaves are giant. You’re twice my size and twice as lovely as anything I’ve ever known.”

“Oi!”

“Delightful shade of green, love. You’re quite the darling and anyone would be lucky to have you. Sweetheart, pretty one, lovely, sweetie, honey—”

Crowley caught on by this point and threw a pillow in Aziraphale’s direction.

“I have a few more names left,” Aziraphale teased.

“That’s enough plant torture for today. Give me my pillow back.”

“Give it back? You threw it at me.”

“Tomato, tom-ah-toe, angel.”

Aziraphale picked up the pillow and gently tossed it, not because Crowley deserved to have it back but because it made Aziraphale feel warm and flustered to be on the receiving end of an endearing term. He’d never thought of angel before, either.

“Well.” Aziraphale touched his bow-tie. “I should get going.”

Crowley’s eyes darted around the room. “Suppose so,” he said. Aziraphale barely knew Crowley at all, and yet he felt like he did, but he’d say the smile on Crowley’s face was _nervous_ when he faced Aziraphale. “I’d walk you home but my legs are being a bastard right now.”

Crowley had taken enormous pleasure in teasing Aziraphale earlier with the fact that his walking cane had a beautiful serpent carved into it, specifically customized so. Aziraphale had never blushed so hard in his life, grateful all the while that Crowley found the situation hilarious rather than offensive that Aziraphale assumed he’d hurt a snake.

“This has been nice,” Crowley commented airily, pulling Aziraphale from his thoughts.

“Hm? Oh, yes. Thank you for inviting me over and sharing wine.”

Crowley waved a hand carelessly. “Eh. No trouble. You can provide the wine next time.”

Aziraphale mulled the hopeful assumption over. “Yes. Next time.”

❀❀❀

Aziraphale had a wonderful time using a hammer to smash down several wooden planks a month later in order to talk easily with Crowley. They spent most days together when Crowley wasn’t working. They had daytime tea and nighttime wine and the occasional trip out somewhere to dine. Sometimes Crowley insisted on walking Aziraphale the short distance back to his home after a night spent talking together, insisting that Aziraphale needed a knight with a shining cane to smack any potential foes, and other times he pouted at his legs not cooperating and stopping him from doing so. Tonight was such and Crowley’s pout put all pouts to shame.

“I’ll phone you to let you know when I’m safely inside.”

“You don’t have to,” Crowley said which really meant _please do._ He sighed. “Alright, if you insist on abandoning me, lean down for a goodbye.”

Now, that had never happened before.

Crowley rolled his eyes at Aziraphale’s bemusement. “I can’t walk and now that I’m sitting down I very much don’t want to get up. You are extremely stubborn and frustrating,” Crowley glared with no heat behind it, “and if I don’t take a chance soon I know I’m going to regret it. So, if you would just _please_ lean over and I could kiss your cheek.”

Aziraphale blinked. “That’s very forward of you.”

“I’m trying to _woo_ you, here, angel, work with me.”

“Woo me?” A slow smile lit up Aziraphale’s face.

“Yes,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes again, “you seem the wooing type. I expect you to woo me back, of course. It’s only polite.”

“It is polite,” Aziraphale agreed with a solemn face that lasted only a few seconds before he smiled again, glancing away from overwhelming warmth in his heart. He leaned down and Crowley’s lips were damp as they brushed his cheek. Aziraphale stilled. For a few seconds, he almost hoped Crowley would press another. He didn’t because he’s a secret, odd gentlemen like that. Aziraphale straightened up, clearing his throat and glancing around the room. He made eye contact with Crowley again, who stared at him with exasperated indulgence, and adjusted his bow-tie uselessly. 

Quickly, Aziraphale leaned down again and pressed a quick kiss to Crowley’s hairline—he smells citrusy, like oranges—and reveled in the small, surprised sound Crowley made. For a moment of pure vulnerability, Crowley’s face melted in a pleased expression. Aziraphale was rather pleased as well.

“Well, I suppose this is good-bye, then.”

“Not for long,” Crowley said in a not-question.

“Not for long, my dear,” Aziraphale answered.

**Author's Note:**

> you can reblog on tumblr [here](https://azira-yeet.tumblr.com/post/185966797661/flower-funerals-and-poor-assumptions-azira-yeet)
> 
> if you want to see good omen memes, meta, and fluff bits like this you can follow me @ [azira-yeet](https://azira-yeet.tumblr.com/)  
> ! : )


End file.
